Poema de Peter Thorpe -I caught an octopus-

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I caught an octopus, a small one, once,While fishing off the docks in Puget Sound:“What are you doing on my hook, you duce?”I said, as all his tentacles flailed around

And thrashed and broke the surface with a fury.“I’m trying to fish,” I said, “for cod and flounder.Not some red rubbery freak. I’m in a hurry.So please get off my hook. A Puget Sounder

Like me has more important things to do.”But here the little octopus looked at meWith his sad eyes and said, “The trouble with youAnd all your kind is that you think the sea

Owes you a life. You’re wrong. It owes you none-Though you will cult these legs off, one by one.”

Peter Thorpe -Sonnets Two Ten-

Peter Thorpe

Peter Thorpe was born in Seattle. He is Professor Emeritus from the University of Colorado at Denver, where he was Chairman of the Denver Faculty Assembly and Chairman of the four-campus Faculty Council. He has published ten books and has been a book reviewer for the Denver Rocky Mountain News for twenty-five years. His poetry has appeared in the New Yorker, Antioch Review, College English, Northwest Review, West Coast Review, and elsewhere. During the nineteen-fifties he was an officer and aviator in the U.S. Navy, flying dive-bombers and jet fighters. He was in three aviation accidents. After his naval service he attended the University of Washington, receiving his Ph.D. in English in 1963. In his younger days he enjoyed mountain climbing in the Northwest, ascending such peaks as Mt. Adams, Mt. Hood, Mt. Rainier, and Mt. St. Helens (before it erupted). He has done volunteer work with United Way and various literacy programs. Peter Thorpe and his wife Nan divide their time between their home in Rancho Santa Fe, California, and their condo in Seattle.